Tower defense titles have evolved considerably over the past decade, with some developers taking the original concept and putting their own unique twist on the action. On the surface, Scribble Defense appears to follow the original idea to a tee, implementing enemy spawning and tower building by the book.

There’s a lot more to it than that, however, as the game provides a few interesting twists to keep the base concept fresh while adding more depth to proceedings.

GAMEPLAY

On each level, enemies spawn from a set of points around the screen and make their way down a scribble path, eventually reaching your base. Allow enough baddies to reach the end of their stroll and the level is lost.

You can stop them dead in their tracks by placing down towers around the paths. These act as gun placements and will shoot at anything that moves into their radius. Fallen bad guys will sometimes drop cash which can then be used to buy more towers for dealing with the tougher enemies later on in the level.

The backbone of Scribble Defense is your bog-standard TD affair, but a number of interesting additions and general well-balanced play make all the difference.

The paths down which the enemy roam are not always stationary, and can move about considerably. This means that a single tower placement at a point on the path’s edge will not work, as the path may move out of its range. Hence, you’re challenged with covering the entire area rather than a single path.

Later into the game, methods become available for pulling and pushing the path in any direction you want. This can be extremely useful, allowing you to push two separate paths together and use a smaller number of towers for the same job.

This becomes essential when colour-coded enemies begin to spawn. Certain bad guys are incredibly tough, but will instantly explode if they so much as touch one of their brothers of a specific colour. Pushing two paths together and then using a vortex tower to pull all the surrounding enemies together can set off a chain reaction in this case, causing them to touch and kill each other.

Enemy types are quite varied, meaning you’ll have to approach each level differently. Only specific towers are available for each course, too, so you’ll be changing your tactics quite frequently. Fortunately the game stays well-balanced throughout, with a pleasant difficulty curve for easing players into the action before unleashing hell.

While the gameplay is really excellent, a couple more game modes would have been appreciated – maybe a survival mode or even multiplayer take on the action.

STYLE

Scribble Defense implements a simple, easy-to-understand interface which works fairly solidly. The graphical style does feel a little barebone, with scribbled paths, simple enemy animations and a black background, but there’s technically nothing wrong with Scribble Defense’s looks.

It’s not specifically stated, but I got the impression that these scribbles were made with chalk on a blackboard. This theory is backed-up by the end of level screen, where your points are added together and a grade awarded – it reminded me of a teacher toting up sums on a chalkboard at school.

Sound-wise, it’s all fairly average with nothing to really write home about. Towers make with the pew pew, and enemies die with alien screams.

STORY

There is no story to speak of, but as with many tower defense titles, it’s not really necessary. Still, a running dialogue may have done a better job of tying all the levels together.

OTHER

If tower defense is your forte, you may want to check out Scribble Defense. It throws a few fresh ideas into the fray and definitely comes up trumps.

The game only costs $1, so if the concept appeals to you in any way, it’s definitely worth throwing your hard-earning points in. At the least, you’re getting a couple of hour’s worth of quality tower defending action.